Fate 2The upcoming Season 15 and next year’s expansion, The Witch Queen, will remain a mystery to players ahead of Bungie’s big showcase stream on August 24th. And while Bungie is interested in teasing players ahead of the event, the studio has revealed a few big skill changes on Thursday.
In addition to Assistant Game Director Joe Blackburn’s tweets about upcoming PvP changes, the Bungie team has three major change topics to discuss before August 24th: skills, weapons, and armor. The first blog is all about skill changes coming later this month.
Bungie started its usual Thursday blog highlighting a new system: separate hand-to-hand combat actions. Guardians have two types of melee attacks in Destiny. The first is a standard attack that doesn’t require energy or cooldown. The other is a melee skill-based attack like a punch that grants a shield when killing an enemy or throwing knife. Players can only perform these skill attacks if they have enough melee energy stored.
But for years, players have accidentally used their skills when attempting standard hand-to-hand combat, or vice versa. To address this issue, Guardians can now tie their melee and standard melee skills separately. Unless players change anything, the attack works as usual – the game tries to interpret what move you want to make based on your distance to the target. But starting August 25, controllers and keyboardists will be able to use two separate buttons for these attacks to ensure they never accidentally perform the wrong attack again.
Bungie then moved on to any skill changes coming later that month for underutilized subclasses. The studio promised an update on how the use of skills in PvP will play out in the near future.
Titans will be undoing some of their recent stasis nerfs – especially their super slide ability – to make the subclass feel a little better in PvE combat. The Sunbreaker’s Throwing Hammer also lasts longer and does more damage to tough enemies. For strikers, the Fist of Havok Super gets a range buff and lasts longer. Finally, Bungie makes it easier for bosses to break sentinel bubbles.
Titans will also see some big changes to their class ability, the Barricade. All barricades now sink more into the ground – for better protection – and cause near-fatal damage to enemies who pass through. Rally Barricades will also improve stability and range while reducing flinch, in addition to its significant increase in reload speed.
Bungie is also pulling back some of the stasis nerfs for hunters, making it easier to damage bosses with its Silence and Squall super and increasing the projectile speed for the melee attack Withering Blade. Gunslingers will have a longer window of time for kills with chain knives, and the six-shooter variant of Golden Gun will have a longer range. Arcstaff Hunter will receive bigger damage and duration buffs later this month, and night stalkers using the melee variant will be easier to kill.
Warlocks get another nerf for their stasis class, which makes it harder for them to freeze and kill guards in their super. Bungie changes part of the identity of the Dawnblade variant with high mobility, reducing the super’s lethality and adding a little more movement when it climbs under the influence of heat. Bosses will have an easier time killing the Well of Radiance Super, and Dawnblade players will also get some improvements.
Chaos Reach Warlocks will have an easier time landing their Super in PvE, but the skill will be significantly less in the Crucible. Arc Soul Stormcallers also receive a buff for their tower friend. Voidwalker’s Nova Warp will see a massive 73% damage increase in PvE and should be a lot easier to use.
Finally, Bungie revealed that starting in season 15, Guardians will have an easier time unlocking stasis abilities. The studio will remove some of the barriers for players just getting a taste of the new element.
For a full list of changes, including numeric values for most of these abilities, check out Bungie’s blog or wait for the official patch notes later this month. All of these changes should go live on August 24th along with Season 15.
